Covid in Scotland: when will we be vaccinated?

Finally, there are several Covid vaccines that look promising.

There are still obstacles to overcome, but public health officials have begun sharing their plans on how to distribute the vaccine so that life can begin to return to normal.

BBC Scotland has looked into the key things you need to know about the coronavirus vaccine.

The Scottish Secretary of Health says the NHS will be ready to vaccinate people from the first week of December if safety approval is given for a vaccine.

It is hoped that up to one million people can be vaccinated by the end of January if there are no delays.

All going well, everyone else over the age of 18 will be vaccinated throughout Spring and Summer 2021.

Everyone in Scotland over the age of 18 will be offered a vaccination. That’s 4.4 million people.

The UK’s Joint Vaccination and Immunization Committee (JCVI) has come up with advice on how to prioritize people.

It has been said that the priorities for the first wave of vaccine distribution, from December to February, are:

Those who meet the above criteria will be contacted in December and January by post or, if working in the health and social sector, by their employer.

After these people are vaccinated, the current council says people over the age of 65 should be next, followed by those under 65 who are at additional clinical risk.

So let’s move on to vaccinating the wider population.

All is going well, public health experts say it will likely be spring or summer next year when mass vaccination of those who are not in the most vulnerable groups takes place.

But it all really depends on how many doses are available.

There are no plans to make vaccination mandatory.

So far, the UK government has secured access to over 355 million doses of experimental vaccines, including:

While 355 million sounds like a lot of vaccines, remember that some vaccines require patients to be given two doses to be effective.

The UK government is ordering vaccines on behalf of the four nations, so the supply will be split between Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, based on population.

The Pfizer / BioNtech vaccine was the first to show promising results from its phase three clinical trials.

Manufacturers think the jab could prevent more than 90% of people from contracting Covid-19.

And so far no safety issues have been raised.

It is known as an RNA vaccine, a new type of technology. It involves injecting some of the virus’s genetic code into the body to train the immune system.

One complication is that the vaccine must be stored at -70 ° C. It keeps for five days before being used in a normal refrigerator.

Scotland has 22 commercial freezers that will be used to store the vials at ultra low temperatures, but the requirement to keep it this cold could present some challenges when it comes to transporting to more remote areas.

Officials say they have plans on how to get this vaccine across the country, but admit it’s easier to get people to the vaccine than to get it to people.

So they might say it makes sense to use this vaccine in larger urban centers and opt for a different vaccine to be given to rural communities.

Another transport complication is its packaging. To get the vaccine out as quickly as possible, Pfizer packed 195 multidose vials in each box, which means that each box contains 975 doses.

Since the vaccine must be stored at such a low temperature, it is difficult to divide the doses, transport them and administer them in more distant places all within 120 hours of leaving the vials out of the freezers at -70 ° C.

Then there is the Moderna vaccine, which has also reached phase three of the trial. It’s another RNA vaccine.

Moderna believes its vaccine protects 94.5% of people from Covid symptoms.

So far only 5 million doses have been guaranteed by the UK government and won’t be available until spring.

However, it does not need to be kept cold enough and therefore can be stored in a regular freezer.

The Oxford vaccine, developed by the British drug manufacturer AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, also looks promising.

It is based on a different approach: it takes a harmless virus that infects chimpanzees and genetically modifies it to resemble the coronavirus to try to provoke an immune response.

And then there’s the Janssen vaccine, which uses a common cold virus that has been genetically engineered to make it harmless and to resemble the coronavirus more at a molecular level.

This should train the immune system to recognize and fight the coronavirus.

Several other vaccines are in the final testing phase, and further results from other teams working on advanced trials are also expected in the coming weeks and months.

What you get will depend on a number of factors: what’s available, where you’re getting vaccinated (so, for example, it’s much easier to give urban dwellers the Pfizer shot than transporting it at -70 ° C to a small island ) and what we know about how vaccines work at the time you get vaccinated.

Scientists will study the effectiveness of injections as they are given to people, and it may turn out that different vaccines adapt to different parts of the population.

So, it may turn out that the vaccine you get depends on your age, for example. But we are at the beginning: we will learn more in the months to come.

It is a national program, so guidance and logistics will be provided by the Scottish Government.

NHS commissions will guide local delivery and manage staff.

From phase two, there will be a booking service.

More than 2,000 vaccinators and support staff will be needed by the end of January, with around one million people vaccinated at this point.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman says there are currently 971 vaccinators and support staff for the program to start in December.

It won’t be easy.

There are some problems Scotland faces that other places may not face.

For example, the diversity of the country’s geography – from densely populated urban areas, to much more rural and remote areas.

In remote areas, logistics and warehousing requirements will present challenges.

Public health officials said the logistical challenges of reaching certain communities will be taken into account when allocating supplies to prevent doses from being wasted.

And then there are things to consider such as how to safely vaccinate those in nursing homes who cannot travel to get the vaccine?

The Scottish government has said it intends to bring the vaccine to them and give it the shot in homes.

In other circumstances, vaccination teams in the community could give people the shot at home.